Andews on Nuclear Proliferation

A Thoughtful Cogent, Yet Flawed, Speech (4.00 / 2)

Let's give credit where it is due.  This is a smart affable fellow and he has a pleasant delivery and a wry sense of humor.

Much of what he said on the nuclear threat is establishmentarian boilerplate that leans toward a neocon lite perspective.

Early on he conflates a potential nuclear threat from Al Qaeda (terrorists) with the long historic threat from the former Soviet Union.   They were not, and are not in the same state, let alone the same ball park.

Russia STILL has many hundreds of weapons (as opposed to thousands in the past ) which can strike us.   Certainly China has a few too.  We don't see them a likely threats because of the MAD policies.

Andrews said nothing of the proliferation that resulted from the Pakistani scientist/businessman who sold all manner of secrets right under the eyes of the CIA.   It's often our "friends" we need to be careful of.    

On the other hand Putin is now rebuilding his military with the big bucks he's getting from oil prices at 100 bucks and more a barrel. And China is doing their damndest to copy all of our weapons technologies even into space.  In the long run, the concrete threat from these two potential adversaries far outweighs the speculative potentials of the crazed Al Qaeda types.

Further Andrews implies that with a quantity of fissile material the size of a graperfruit , some explosives and a uhaul truck (and a hundred thousand bucks worth of....) one could somehow manufacture a nuclear weapon.    

I'm no expert, but that sounds off to me.   I think he's mixing up a "dirty bomb" with an actual nuclear fission bomb.   Both are horrible, but the latter is orders of magnitude more-so, and is what was used in Japan, twice.  

As I understand it, the requirements for specific types of fuses, explosives, machining etc etc would be far beyond anything that a non state actor could manage.....certainly beyond anything a hundred grand could pay for.

My point is that Andrews is into scaring people with overblown scenarios.  And that stinks of the Bush agenda.

Yes, the dangers of terrorism are indeed real, and yes, we must do what we can to minimize the risks.......but buying into the fear mongering that this administration promulgates only adds fuel to the fire and actually encourages Al Qaeda to  see itself as successful.

Further, our foreign policy, such as it is, couldn't do a better job of spreading hatred of the US and spreading the seeds of terrorism if it were designed by Bin Laden himself.    

We have accomplished nothing in Iraq except to kill a lot of people and brutalize a whole nation for nothing other than to have the price of oil go up.    We've managed to make it, in many regards, more of a hell hole than it was under Saddam Hussein.  

If any of the tens thousands of America haters Bush has created in Iraq ever do get their hands on the makings of a WMD and somehow use it here; it will be the direct result/blowback of a corrupt and stupid war that we were lied into.

So yes, we do have to deal with the terrorists.  How about starting by creating less of them?

How about changing our foreign policies to actually reflect our stated ideals as opposed to merely paying lipservice to them while we go about all manner of war profiteering in service to a corrupt military industrial petrochemical complex?  The people of the world are not so stupid or easily fooled as the Bushiastas would imagine.

I would love to see Andrews, and the rest of the NJ congressional delegation come to an event and spend a weekend actually dealing with these kinds of questions in depth.

My sense is that Lautenberg gives the Bush administratioin more "agita" than Andrews in  re the Iraq fiasco....and that's a good thing.

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by: Nick Lento @ Sat Apr 05, 2008 at 01:37:59 AM UTC

easily fooled (0.00 / 0)

unfortunately too many people are fooled.
But as usual Nick you are a voice of reason, and for this I thank you!!!!

Because I am normally tied up  working on important matters/research, I usually don't blog, but the past couple of days knowing the record of Andrews and the South Jersey political scene like the back of my hand, I had to find out how ill informed the public was in this area.

It's very apparent why we don't have a Senator from South Jersey, and we won't until they clean up their acts.

They have to realize it doesn't matter North or South, its the quality and honesty of the person.  

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by: roses4jo @ Sat Apr 05, 2008 at 03:20:21 AM UTC